Maine Democrats are poised to nominate Graham Platner on Tuesday to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins in one of the most important Senate races this year. But a series of recent domestic violence allegations and controversies surrounding Platner could become a major political problem for the party in its effort to regain control of the Senate.

The controversy extends beyond questions about electability. Jewish Democratic organizations have withheld support from Platner over his past Nazi-linked tattoo, criticism of Israel and rhetoric that some Jewish leaders view as troubling, even as top national Democrats rally behind his candidacy.

The primary was effectively decided weeks ago when former Gov. Janet Mills suspended her campaign after lagging in polls and struggling to raise money. Mills never formally withdrew from the ballot, leaving open the possibility that some Democrats will use Tuesday’s primary as a protest vote against Platner

The dilemma facing Democrats is unusually stark.

Maine, considered a purple state, is widely viewed as one of the party’s clearest opportunities to flip a Republican-held Senate seat. Collins, 73, is running for a sixth term, though critics argue her image as a political moderate has diminished in recent years. In her last reelection campaign in 2020, Collins defeated her Democratic challenger 51-42. Sara Gideon, who is married to a Jewish lawyer, ran a competitive race and drew support from Maine’s estimated 15,000 Jewish voters and outside Jewish Democratic groups.

The 41-year-old Platner, an oyster farmer and former Marine, appeared to be the kind of insurgent candidate Democrats dream about. He led Mills by a significant margin and consistently ran ahead of Collins in public polling.

But the past two weeks have left Democrats struggling with his candidacy.

Reports about explicit messages sent to women while married and allegations from former partners describing threatening and troubling behavior, along with scrutiny of past online posts, put the Platner campaign on defense.

For Jewish voters, Platner’s rise and the party’s embrace of him were already hard to swallow. Platner faced backlash last year after acknowledging that a black skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest resembled a Nazi symbol. He has since covered it up. In past posts on Reddit, Platner defended a man with a Nazi SS lightning bolt tattoo who impersonated a federal officer at a Black Lives Matter protest in Las Vegas in 2020.

A New York Times story last week cited an ex-girlfriend who said Platner knew for years that the tattoo on his chest was associated with Nazi imagery, an allegation he has forcefully denied.

Also troubling to Jewish Democrats, Platner has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and suggested the U.S. should cut off all aid to Israel. Last week, Platner accused Collins of taking money from AIPAC and being “bought and paid for by Benjamin Netanyahu, and she votes accordingly.”

Halie Soifer, head of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said in an April interview that her group was not prepared to back Platner. JDCA had endorsed Mills in the primary before she suspended her campaign. On Sunday, Soifer said the group continues to stand by its endorsement of Mills, signaling that voters who remain uneasy about Platner still have the option of casting a vote for the former governor, whose name remains on the ballot.

“If he were running in Jersey, he’d either be thrown off the ballot or buried under the Meadowlands,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Jewish Democrat from New Jersey, said on Friday.

Top Democratic strategists told Politico that Platner could face pressure to drop out of the race if Mills receives a significant amount of votes.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S., has so far continued to show support for Platner. After meeting with Platner last week in Washington, D.C., Schumer told reporters that defeating Collins remains a top priority for Democrats seeking to reclaim power in the Senate.

The likely result is a question Democrats increasingly cannot avoid: If Platner wins Tuesday as expected, how much longer can national Democrats continue treating him as their standard-bearer and excuse conduct they would condemn in a Republican candidate? Jewish Democratic organizations, having already distanced themselves from Platner, will also have to decide how to respond if he becomes the party’s nominee, as other nominees are also coming under scrutiny for past remarks and associations with antisemitic influencers.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in an interview Sunday on Fox News, was asked whether he’s concerned that his party “has an antisemitism problem,” citing Platner’s rhetoric and that of other Democratic candidates.

Platner is “going to have to speak for himself, and that’s what any candidate, particularly in a high-profile race, is going to be called upon to do,” Jeffries said. He added that the effort to crush antisemitism is an “American issue” and shouldn’t be a partisan issue. “It can’t be a red or blue issue. It’s a red, white, and blue issue.”

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(JTA) — At the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual gala last November, much of the discussion centered around right-wing antisemitism. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz warned that there was “an existential crisis in our party” as figures such as Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes built their online audiences, while right-wing firebrand Rep. Randy Fine of Florida slammed Carlson as an antisemite.

At the RJC’s “America 250” gala six months later, the mood was cheerier, and the cautionary words gave way to declarations that emerging antisemitism on the right was being dealt with properly.

Fine reminded the audience at the RJC event held in Manhattan on Sunday that in his speech to the RJC in November, he’d called Carlson “the most dangerous antisemite in America.” Now, he said, “I don’t know that that’s true anymore.”

Fine and other Republicans at the RJC gala told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that enough Republicans had spoken out against Carlson – most significantly, President Donald Trump – and his ilk to damage their image and dampen the threat they might pose. They also pointed to major GOP critics of Israel who had lost their seats in recent months.

But others have warned that it’s a mistake to celebrate too soon, or think Carlson’s star has really faded, especially amid speculation that he might launch a presidential run as a Republican.

Fine told JTA in a text that he now believes the country’s “most dangerous antisemite” is Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s anti-Zionist mayor. In contrast, he said, Carlson’s impact had only plummeted in the past half-year.

“I think that brand has been destroyed [in] the last six months,” he wrote, attributing the change to politicians like himself calling Carlson out, as well as “the damage he has done to himself.”

A number of speakers at the RJC who lauded Republicans’ response to antisemitism in the party also pointed to the recent primary defeat of outspoken Israel critic Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie. Brooks said to loud applause that the group spent $5 million in that race, and called the effort “a fight worth having and a victory worth celebrating.”

Speakers also recounted the resignation from Congress of Marjorie Taylor Greene in January, maintaining that the Republican Party is squashing its anti-Israel voices, while the Democratic Party is electing them.

“Being anti-Israel in today’s Republican Party is not — unlike the Democratic Party — a path to success,” said RJC CEO Matt Brooks during his remarks. Brooks later told JTA that Carlson, Owens and Fuentes’ “influence and credibility is less than it’s ever been” and that “they don’t represent” the mainstream of the MAGA movement.

But the Anti-Defamation League warned that it would be a mistake not to see the audience and impact of Carlson in particular as worthy of continued concern.

Oren Segal, the ADL’s vice president of counterextremism and intelligence, said in an interview with JTA that his organization’s biggest worry regarding Carlson is “not merely his relationship with any conservative or elected officials” but also the “normalization” of his views.

Segal pointed to the accusation that an Israeli attack on an American spy ship during the 1967 Six-Day War was intentional — used by conspiracy theorists as proof that the Jewish state cannot be trusted — despite U.S. investigations determining that it was a mistake.

“No one’s been a bigger boon to the USS Liberty Conspiracy of late than Tucker Carlson,” he said.

Segal added that it would be “absurd” to count out anyone as a potential presidential contender, while several political observers have speculated that Carlson may be weighing a run.

New York University professor Scott Galloway recently said on his New York Magazine podcast “Pivot” that the former Fox News host could be a serious contender. There is an “enormous lane,” he assessed, for a candidate who, like Carlson, has “very conservative values, an enormous media platform, an enormous army of acolytes that he could weaponize right away, and is anti-Trump and anti-the war on Iran.”

Some of Carlson’s allies are gunning for a campaign. Speaking Thursday on Russian state television during a trip to St. Petersburg, Owens said she personally did not plan to run for office but said Carlson would be a great candidate for president.

“I would love for him to run,” she said, adding, “I would gratefully get behind someone like Tucker Carlson.”

Back in March, TV host Piers Morgan asked Carlson whether he has White House ambitions. Carlson said that politics is “not what I do,” adding, “The whole idea of, ‘I’ve been a successful cable news host, I should be president!’ — that whole way of thinking is disgusting to me.”

Asked about the possibility of Carlson running for president, Brooks told JTA in a statement that the RJC would continue to push back against Carlson and similar anti-Israel figures.

“There is only one party where American Jews can be proudly pro-Israel, and it is the Republican Party — and those who imperil that will have to come through the RJC first,” Brooks said.

Others who attended Sunday’s RJC gathering felt the possibility of a Carlson candidacy was overblown. Shabbos Kestenbaum, a prominent Jewish conservative activist who sued Harvard University over alleged antisemitism, dismissed concerns that Carlson could be a serious presidential candidate.

In an interview, he pointed out that Carlson’s support of Massie and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Casey Putsch did not yield electoral success. Putsch, who has a history of dog whistling to neo-Nazis, received 17.5% of the vote in Ohio’s Republican gubernatorial primary. Unlike Massie, Carlson did not issue an endorsement for Putsch, but he did host Putsch on his podcast last year.

“His endorsements mean absolutely nothing, and outside of the ‘Podcastistan’ universe, his words carry very little weight,” Kestenbaum said of Carlson.

Brooks said in an interview with JTA  that he feels “very pleased” with how the party has responded to voices like Carlson’s. President Donald Trump has publicly cast Carlson aside since his former ally sharpened his objections to the administration’s war in Iran.

“It’s been marginalized,” Brooks said of the party’s anti-Israel wing. “They tried to hijack the term MAGA. Groups like ours, but equally important, the president, has made it clear they are not MAGA.”

Asked about Vice President JD Vance, who has not offered a condemnation of Carlson to some Jewish Republicans’ chagrin, Brooks said, “When you have the president speaking, that’s the voice that matters right now.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Some Jewish Republicans say Tucker Carlson is no longer a threat. Others worry he’ll run for president. appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced a plan to fight antisemitism, but Canadian Jews are debating whether it’s enough.

Carney said on Monday that the country was “failing Jewish Canadians” as antisemitic hate crimes rose to the highest levels seen in Canada since World War II. In a speech at Toronto’s Holy Blossom Synagogue, he announced a new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion  to guide the government in combating all forms of hate and racism, with the “first responsibility” of addressing antisemitism.

Pressure was mounting on Carney to stem the tide of attacks since 2023, which have included gunfire at Jewish schools and synagogues and attacks on Jewish businesses and community centers.

Carney’s response has exposed faultlines among Canadian Jews over what tackling antisemitism should look like. Carney, the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party who recognized a Palestinian state last year, joins a growing number of left-leaning world leaders to grapple with fighting antisemitism while preserving room for Israel critics in their political tents.

Some Jewish groups are criticizing the council’s bureaucratic mandate and Carney’s general targeting of “hate,” saying his proposal is too broad and ineffective for Jews in need of urgent protection. Some Conservative politicians and Jewish leaders also targeted the makeup of the council, whose seven members include one prominent Jewish politician alongside a lawyer representing pro-Palestinian campus activists and a former Liberal Party lawmaker and ex-chair of the Canadian Arab Federation. The last especially has been criticized by some pro-Israel voices.

Other Jewish groups support Carney’s move to unite efforts against antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of racism under one umbrella. Liberal and progressive leaders including Maytal Kowalski, head of the group JSpaceCanada, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that attacks on the council’s Arab member were “rooted in racism.”

Carney said the new council will assess the nature, scale and drivers of antisemitism, align federal policies and public safety programs to confront hate, and improve data collection on hate incidents.

Those measures did not satisfy B’nai Brith Canada, the country’s oldest Jewish advocacy group, which called for stronger enforcement and prosecution.

“Absent was a clear commitment to mobilize all levels of government, law enforcement, prosecutors, security agencies, educational institutions, and civil society around a coordinated national response,” the group said in a statement.

Melissa Lantsman, a Jewish Conservative MP, said Carney showed Canadian Jews “he thinks you are stupid.”

“‘Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians’ is an extraordinary admission,” Lantsman said on X. “It should have been followed by concrete actions and concrete consequences for those doing the failing. Didn’t happen.”

Some Jewish groups also objected to how Carney defined antisemitism. B’nai Brith Canada, which promotes Zionism and Israel, pressed him to condemn anti-Zionism as a root of the crisis.

“Anti-Zionist manifestations of antisemitism have become increasingly legitimized and normalized,” said CEO Simon Wolle. “A government cannot successfully fight antisemitism while refusing to confront one of its most prevalent contemporary forms.”

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, an advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations of Canada, similarly said that Canadians “needed to hear” Carney address anti-Zionism. “It is essential to recognize anti-Zionist extremism as a driver of hostility toward Canadian Jews since the Hamas-led October 7 terrorist attacks,” the group said in a statement.

Carney acknowledged the shadow of Israel in his speech, though he never explicitly named the country. He urged Canadians not to “transpose foreign conflicts onto each other” and ensure that “no Canadian child goes to school being seen as a representative of any foreign state.”

Attacks on Canadian Jews have surged since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing war in Gaza, which has deeply soured Canadian views of Israel.

Rather than identifying political ideologies, Carney pointed to a broader threat of hatred spreading “when conspiracy becomes discourse.”

That statement was applauded by Jewish leaders like Kowalski, who said that conspiratorial thinking and polarization lay at the root of dangers not only against Jews, but all minority groups.

“I think that it is a mistake to say that it is Israel or anti-Zionism, or the war in Gaza, or what is happening now in Lebanon or Iran, that is causing the rise of antisemitism,” said Kowalski, whose liberal Zionist organization, JSpaceCanada, advocates for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “I think, quite frankly, that’s giving antisemites too much credit. It’s saying once these things end, they will cease to be antisemitic, and that is simply not true.”

Independent Jewish Voices, a progressive group, also told JTA that it welcomed the government’s decision to “bring together the fights against antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of organized hate.”

The council’s makeup has been closely scrutinized by Conservative politicians and Jewish leaders.

Carney announced the appointment of Marc Gold, a lawyer and Jewish community leader who retired last year from the Senate of Canada, to join the body. The council will be chaired by Marc Miller, the minister of Canadian identity and culture. It also includes former Liberal MP Omar Alghabra, the first Syrian-born Canadian elected to the House of Commons and previous chair of the Canadian Arab Federation, and Avnish Nanda, a lawyer who is representing pro-Palestinian activists in a lawsuit against the University of Alberta.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre singled out Alghabra, telling reporters on Tuesday, “I’m not sure he’s the right guy to combat antisemitism.” He accused Alghabra of “lobbying me before he was in politics to keep Hezbollah legal.” Poilievre did not respond to a request for more information about his allegation and Alghabra did not respond to a JTA request for comment.

During a parliamentary debate in 2016, Alghabra said that Hamas was a “terrorist organization” and called for “peaceful dialogue and consultations to reach a peaceful resolution to the two-state outcome that we would like to achieve.”

Alghabra’s appointment was also decried by Rabbi Zolly Claman of Montreal’s Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem Congregation. Claman told Fox News on Thursday that he was “truly shocked” because Alghabra “publicly mourned the death of Yasser Arafat and remained silent when asked to condemn the attacks of Oct. 7.”

Alghabra condemned the attacks on Oct. 13, 2023, saying on X, “The terror attacks committed by Hamas against Israelis are horrific and unjustifiable.” He added, “The images of mass destruction of Gaza are horrifying. Civilians in Gaza are defenceless and Israel has obligations under international law.”

The Fox piece linked a video recorded by a member of the far-right website Rebel News, in which a videographer followed Alghabra while he walked on a street and asked whether he condemned the attack. Alghabra did not answer or acknowledge the videographer’s questions.

After the 2004 death of Arafat, the first president of the Palestinian Authority who both oversaw terror campaigns against Israel and negotiated a framework for peace with it, Alghabra told the Globe and Mail that Arafat “played a tremendous role in highlighting the Palestinian struggle for independence and making it visible in the international arena.”

Kowalski said many critics of Alghabra’s appointment were “writing someone off because they are Arab.” She worked with Alghabra on a panel hosted by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last year, during which she said that he contributed a “great voice” to discussions about Canada’s relationship with Israel.

“It’s very upsetting to me, because he is someone who has always been a great ally to the Jewish community,” said Kowalski, who told JTA that Alghabra was not doing interviews after he did not respond to a request for comment.

Nanda is currently representing two Palestinian Canadian alumni and a Jewish American professor in a lawsuit against the University of Alberta. They allege that the school violated their freedom of expression, assembly and association by directing police to forcibly remove a pro-Palestinian encampment in May 2024, according to the CBC.

B’nai Brith has not explicitly addressed the claims made about members of the council, but has said the group “lacks the mandate and expertise to lead the fight against antisemitism in Canada.”

Kowalski argued that the stakes of combating hatred called for a diverse coalition. “If such a council were to be built for anti-Palestinian racism, I would equally hope that they would have Jews on that council,” she said.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

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